Saturday, November 25, 2006

Nice to see the Oilers dust up a hapless Brian Boucher and his Chicago Blackhawks on Friday, and it was an even nicer game of street hockey Saturday afternoon.

As usual, I earned some malice from teammates for my puck hogging, witless taunts and hot dog blind passes that go nowhere, but what they don't understand is that I love the game, and that goes beyond goodwill, sportsmanship and yes, even teammates (at one point I actually took the ball off of one their sticks like I was Keith Tkachuk).

And from what you can see in the photo above, it was also a bit of a cultural exchange on Saturday, as the urbane, pseudo-sophiscate blue nose from the East (Glenn, from work, in a Russ Courtnall Leafs jersey) took on the single-toothed, beer-swilling yokel from the West (CinO's Chris!, in a Mark Messier Oilers jersey).

You might ask which side of the country won, but truly, at the end of the day, when we're all at Sneaky Dee's slamming back nachos and beer, what matters is that the Country won.

Have to admit that I'm surprised by the Leafs this year. That ratshit Darcy Tucker is having a good season, Andrew "Razor" Raycroft has been surprisingly decent (T.O. workmates left me a "signed" Raycroft picture on my desk) and out-of-nowhere dudes like Ian White aren't half bad.

The question has to be asked: was Pat "Country Club" Quinn basically just a bad coach?

Yeah, the last few winters Edmonton has been no worse than Toronto and often distinctly better, but are we ever paying for it now. Every time I go for smokes and snacks I feel like I have to give a little Captain Oates speech.

glad this has finally become a leafs blog. yes, you're right mike, they probably are the best team in the league this season. who can handle the pony and antropov down low? who? no one. and i'm a total oilers guy!

The fact that Domi isn't taking a roster spot anymore helps. Also without Lindros and Allison they have room for two more players...players that gained experience while the former two were injured. The big thing with Antropov is that he's not injured, and it remains to be seen if he'll stay that way for any significant amount of time; doesn't hurt that he's seemed to cut down on those high sticking penalties and he still scores the odd goal on a wrister that he has no business scoring. Poni has been steadily improving each season and Quinn always seemed to like him. Kubina (even overpaid) is a big improvement over Klee (although I liked Klee, even if slow he's decent positionally).

When all taken into account, and considering that 20 game run the Leafs ended the season on, well I'd have to blame JFJ more than anyone else for hamstringing Quinn. It's not like Quinn could send Domi down to the AHL. Also I'll give Maurice full marks for what he's doing with the youngsters and did do in the minors, but the majority of them got to the show under Quinn and gained that experience in the NHL under Quinn.